“[The] neurocentric model has not only discouraged a more context-dependent view of children, but in addition has allowed for the mental-health professions to act as if the share price of the pharmaceutical industry was more important than the well-being of children under their care.”
Sami Timimi
In De-Medicalising Misery: Psychiatry, Psychology and the Human Condition, Chapter 7 – Medicalizing Masculinity – has been written [2011] by psychiatrist Dr. Sami Timimi. It begins:
“The rate of diagnosis of childhood psychiatric disorders has undergone a steep rise in many Western countries. Among school-age children (particularly in primary schools) there is a strong gender bias, with boys about three times more likely to be diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder than girls, and even more like to receive drug treatment for this. Furthermore, these diagnoses (such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Autistic Spectrum Disorder and Conduct Disorder) do not concern themselves with boys’ emotional lives, but instead focus on their perceived unruly and nonconformist behaviour. Mainstream child-psychiatric theory and practice appears to offer little explanation for, or discussion of, this gender split: instead these diagnoses have become reified …”
